


Seize the Fire

by DarthNickels



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Dexter is trying, Dysfunctional Family, Family Dinners, Gen, It's a metaphor!, One Shot, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 16:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13907721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthNickels/pseuds/DarthNickels
Summary: It's family dinner at the Morgan house, which means a white-knuckle effort to maintain appearances. Deb is a budding zoologist. Harry is making some poor decisions. Dexter struggles with metaphor and dramatic irony.





	Seize the Fire

               Harry had the night off. That didn’t happen very often, so it meant tonight was Family Dinner Night. I wish it wasn’t—it’s hard for me to be On My Best Behavior for this long, and especially in front of my toughest critic—the one who knows its all fake. When we’re alone I can slip up, but everything is more serious in front of other people—especially Debra and Doris. He tells me its good practice, that one day I will have to do this on my own, but I hope not. It’s boring. It’s _exhausting_.

               Luckily, Deb is carrying most of the dinner conversation—something she hadn’t done in a while. My sister is different lately, moody and withdrawn in a way that isn’t like her. It’s hard for me to predict people, to Anticipate And Respond Appropriately, but lately Deb has been impossible. Harry said: “That’s because she’s a girl, Dexter—sooner than you know, she’ll be a woman.”

               That didn’t make much sense to me. It seemed random.  Most things do. But there must be something to it because they are Rules, everyone else knows them and if I don’t learn them everyone will realize there’s something wrong with me. I have to learn everything people already know in order to follow the first rule of Harry’s Code:

Don’t Get Caught.

               In any case, I appreciate Deb. Unlike most people, Boy or Girl, she says interesting things. Like now:

               “Please?” she begged. “I just have _one question_.”

               “Debra,” Doris said, firmly. “No work-talk about the dinner table, and that’s it.”

               “But its not about _homicide_ —”

               I didn’t even miss a beat at the word. I kept sawing into my porkchop, my expression never changing. I knew I nailed it. I glanced up, just a little too casual, to catch Harry’s eye. His expression never changed either. Did he notice? Did I win?

               Harry was paused, considering. Then: “well, if it gets you reading, I guess it can’t be bad.”

               “I read!” Deb objected.

               “You wanna ask your question or not?” Harry was losing patience. Deb decided not to press her luck:

               “Did you really see the tiger?”

               That made Harry smile—rare, especially when he was talking about Work. “Only for a second.”

               “That’s so _cool_!” Deb was rapturous. “What was it like? Did it growl at you? Did it—”

               “Sorry Deb, it was only for a second before it ran off. The park rangers are the ones who brought it in.”

               “Lucky,” Deb said, enviously.

               “It doesn’t sound lucky to me,” Doris remarked. “That tiger already ate someone. It could have eaten your father if he wasn’t careful.”

               “That guy deserved it,” Deb declared.

               I appreciate Deb very much. She always says interesting things—and takes the punishment for them so I don’t have to.

               “Debra!” Doris started, but Harry cut her off:

               “What makes you say that?”

               “You can’t keep an wild animal in a house—in a tiny cage. It’s not right.”

               That made sense to me—Deb’s thinking, anyways. Deb liked fluffy kittens and puppies alright, but she wasn’t any kind of animal activist. She didn’t become a vegetarian like some of the girls at school after our fieldtrip to cattle ranch; she still tore into a hamburger like she’d never eaten anything before in her life. But for all her heartless-carnivore act she did love the zoo, and she liked the big cats best.

               I remember watching her with her nose pressed against the plexiglass, as close as she could get to the Miami-Dade Zoological Garden’s fat, lazy lion. I remember this because I didn’t understand it, the impulse to get as close to an animal as possible. Lions _are_ just animals, I don’t see how they’re different from regular cats or even dogs—they stink, they shit, they shed. Not interesting, except—sometimes.

               But Harry taught me that when people play with fire, they get burned. People like me. They have to be caught and punished, but sometimes they get away, and that’s Not Right. Someone—something— has to right the balance, or everything goes All Wrong. He taught Deb this as well. I nod. Makes sense.

               I figured it out by myself. I’ll tell Harry after dinner. I can’t wait—

               “I don’t think a man should die for it,” Harry said.

               I was wrong. I stabbed my pork chop with more force than necessary. This is impossible.

               “He was stupid,” Deb was really pushing it. “It was going to happen. He did that to himself.”

               “So bloodthirsty,” Doris scolded. Harry put his fork down. He was interested.

               “What makes you say that, Deb?”

               “I read about it,” Deb answered, pointedly, “because I _read_. I’m not stupid, you know—”

               “I never said that,” Harry assured her, sounding tired. Deb rolled her eyes.

               “Anyways, I read about it for a school project—I wrote an essay about exotic pets. People think tigers and chimps and stuff are just like dogs, that they can train them and it’ll be fun and cool but its _not_. They’re predators—everything about them is designed for one purpose, and that’s killing. Killing is how they survive, and their brain just _screams_ at them everyday to do it. They can’t live on a leash. They always turn.”

               “Always, huh?” Harry asked.

               “Always,” Deb said, firmly. “I mean, they’re cute when they’re cubs, but they don’t stay cubs forever. They get too big to be told what to do, and all that other stuff goes out the window because being a predator is in their DNA. It’s hardwired into their brain. Nature made them into this perfect, unstoppable killing machine, and people are so dumb and full of themselves they think they can undo all that—but no one can. It doesn’t matter how much raw meat you give it, tigers need the hunt. The stalk—the pounce—”

               “Rah!” I grab Deb’s arm, giving it a little shake, and she shrieks. Jokes are good, Harry says. Jokes lighten the mood.

               “Dexter!” Harry says, sharply. “Knock it off!”

               “Yeah Dex, what’s your fucking problem—”

               “Debra! Language!”

                Deb will get in trouble even though I it was Not The Time Or Place for my joke. I understand that now. I will remember it later. Next time I will get it right.

               Harry is looking at me now—maybe he knows what I’m thinking. It seems like he always does—he knew exactly what I was before I even guessed there was anything wrong with me. Harry hunts people like me, people who are not people—he’s never said that exactly, but no one else has to be _taught_ how to be a person. Harry decided to make me better, which is why I don’t like when he stares at me this way— it means I am not being Better. I don’t understand why I can’t do it. Harry gave me the pieces, but when I try to put them together, they don’t make sense.

               Harry looks away from me, and I’m glad. He’s holding his fork so tight his knuckles are turning white, which even I know is bad. Doris is still yelling at Deb for saying ‘fuck’. I think she should just give up already, since not even Harry can stop Deb from saying ‘fuck’ when she wants to say ‘fuck’, and maybe Harry agrees, because he pushes his chair back from the table and goes to the kitchen. When he comes back he has two fingers of whisky, which he usually doesn’t drink on weeknights when he works in the morning. Doris sees this and is upset about it too.

               This is my fault. I should say something.

               “Mom?” I ask, politely. “Can I have another pork chop?” Then, a lie: “They’re really good.”

               “Of course,” she says, sliding another one on my plate. The meat is dull great, lifeless, cutting into it is not fun at all. It does not bleed. Doris’ table knives are dull, and I scrape the plate with the force of cutting off bite-size pieces. I think of a joke: pick the meat up with my hands and tear a bite out with my teeth.

               I look at Harry and I immediately know now is Not The Time Or Place. I don’t understand his expression—I’m much better at picking them out now, but there are a few that still make no sense to me, and this is one of them: mouth pulled tight and eyes unfocused, pointed at me but looking like he sees something that’s far away.

               I hope dinner is over soon. I don’t know how many more pork chops I can eat.

**Author's Note:**

> [On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? ](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger)


End file.
